


disappearing in plain sight

by tosca1390



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wonders how long she will last, in his little game of pieces and maneuvers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	disappearing in plain sight

*

Sansa sits silently in her chambers. The windowseat is hard and cool, even through her thick gown. She looks out past the frosted window, watching snow drift across the rocks and open air. To keep her fingers from shaking, she twists them in her lap and tries to breathe evenly.

The castle is still teaming with guards, the musician playing in the dungeons, and her little cousin Robert finally asleep after a hysterical fit. It had taken hours to calm him, and more milk of poppy than she had ever seen used on a child. Her forearms ached from where his thin fingers had dug into her muscles. Her ears still ring with his sobs, the front of her gown damp from his tears.

She knows she should be more surprised, that it turned out this way. But she cannot shake the idea that it has all been part of the plan. Petyr has every move and possibility mapped out; he demonstrated that the night he spirited her away from King’s Landing. Every person has their use until they do not any longer.

She wonders how long she will last, in his little game of pieces and maneuvers.

The heavy door into her chambers creaks open. Petyr slips in smoothly, a pewter mug in one hand and a goblet in the other. He walks towards her with ease, his shoulders unburdened by the night’s events. “Everything has settled down. I’ve sent your maid to bed.”

Turning towards him, she stands from her seat. Petyr presses a mug into her hands, warm to the touch. “Drink. It will relax you.”

Sansa wraps her fingers around the pewter mug and breathes in the steam from mint tea. She presses the warm mug to her mouth, but does not drink.

“You will be the mistress of the Eyrie now.”

Sansa swallows hard, but is not shocked. She has seen this coming since he pushed Lysa out through the Moon Door. “In name only.”

Petyr smiles and there’s nothing gentle behind it. She looks at his mouth, remembering it against her own. A chill sweeps down her spine. “No, indeed. You will run and manage the household, and care for our young lord. It will be excellent preparation for you.”

“Preparation for what?” she asks.

He sips from him goblet and trails slim fingers down the line of her cheek. “All in due time, sweetling. Now, you only need to concern yourself with our Lord Robert, and the household, and keeping your dear father happy.”

Unbidden, an image of Ned Stark comes to mind, all of them in the large hall of Winterfell, eating and laughing. Cold all over, Sansa tilts her face into Petyr’s touch. She will take the gentleness and the warmth from wherever she can, while she can. “I will do my best, my lord,” she says softly.

Abruptly he places a firm hold on her throat, pinning a long fall of hair against her skin. His thumb rests at her pulse. “You will do more than that, sweetling,” he says, firm and even. “You will do it.”

He tilts her face towards his. Her fingers tighten around her mug, the muscles in her arms taut. _Oh, I could scald him. I could_ , she thinks wildly. It reminds her so of the moment with Joffrey, when she thought of pushing him off the wall. Then, she did not care whether she lived or not; now, it is a different story.

“You are tired, Alayne. You must rest. Tomorrow, we will review what happened, and set the household to rights,” he says, voice soothing and low. “We shall have to move you to better chambers as well. Now, give your lord father a kiss.”

His eyes are dark on hers. She knows what he means.

Her fingers loosen on the mug. She tilts into his grip and shuts her eyes.

His kiss is soft, familiar now. It’s nothing like the odd rushed taking of before in the snowy remains of her pretend Winterfell. She does not return it, but she also does not run. She is a bird, flightless.

“You will learn how it works, this game,” he says, breath warm on her face. “You will learn, and we will play it together, sweetling.”

He leaves her then, alone and cold in her small rooms. The musician plays plaintively; it echoes through the stone. The tea in her mug goes untouched.

Sansa lies on her small bed fully clothed, and cannot sleep.

*

A week after the gathering of the lesser lords of the Vale, Marillion throws himself from his sky cell.

The silence is deafening, and Sansa cannot sleep for two nights straight.

“You look quite pale, my sweet,” Petyr says to her as they sit in his chambers one night. She studies heraldry and the lines of kings stretching back past song and story, and he scratches out letter upon letter.

She looks at him across the dimming torchlight, mouth a thin line. “I find it too quiet, my lord,” she says. In the Vale, she has found her tongue once more. She had once thought Joffrey and Cersei had swept it from her all together.

Petyr watches her for a silent moment, eyes cold. “If you were not your mother’s daughter, none of this would have happened,” he said evenly.

Her cheeks flush and she turns back to her scrolls. She thinks it isn’t fair, to blame her for circumstances that aren’t not of her doing. That has been the story of her life for these years now, and she grows weary of the constant guilt, and fear.

In a moment, Petyr is at her side, his hand light on her bared shoulder. Smooth strands of hair fall from her braids across her skin, and he catches them in his fingertips. “One day, you will understand everything that has passed and will still come to pass, sweetling,” he says.

He kisses her then, and sends her on her way. She goes to the chambers in the Maiden’s Tower and knows there’s nothing left for her to do but trust him. He is all she has left.

*

The plan works as Petyr says it will. The lords yield, and the Vale prospers. Gilwood Hunter is poisoned at his nameday feast. Redfort dies within six months. Petyr charms Lady Waynwood and sets the marriage contract between Harrold Hardyng and Alayne in secret. He keeps her close when he is home, and sketches out his every move for her benefit. The openness he has with her is surprising; she imagines he thinks of her as just another girl under his thumb, no wiser than the court flowers he had under his spell.

Sansa cares for the household and learns the tricks and skills her mother was never able to pass along to her. The servants, who were wary of her at first, grow to respect her. Robert, who grows weaker and weaker with each passing month, is dependent on her. It all serves to keep her busy, keep her mind from the happenings outside the Vale, and the blood on her hands.

She falls into Alayne’s life with an ease that frightens her. Most of the time she forgets what it was to be a Stark of Winterfell, to be the daughter of Ned and Catelyn, a sister to five others. That family is lost to her now, both as Sansa and as Alayne. All she has left is herself. She’ll play the game as she needs to, so she can get through.

At night though, when she is alone, she thinks of them.

It’s rare that she is by herself; Robert needs her more and more, and comes to her nearly all the time. She cannot deny him, as the surrogate mother he so desperately needs. Sometimes Petyr will call to her late in the evenings, for plans or lectures or sometimes more. But when she is alone, in the deep cold of night, she dreams of Winterfell, of Lady, of the life she once led in its simplicity.

She is smarter, now. But she isn’t sure she wouldn’t prefer her family alive and whole than the knowledge stirring in her mind, the connections laying themselves out before her in a tangled web of crowns and blood.

*

Alayne meets Harry the Heir for the first time not at a feast, or a dance, or through some orchestration of Petyr’s.

No, she meets Harry in the halls of Ser Royce’s castle, along the corridor to the great hall. She does not know him to meet him, so she passes right past him, with a mind to speak to the cooks over her lord Robert’s supper. But he knows her.

“My lady Alayne.”

She turns, her sleeves of dark brown sweeping along her skirt. He stands tall and blonde and so handsome, she wonders how she could have walked right past him. It had been so long since any man near her age had taken note of her in a kindly way that she is immediately on her guard.

“Ser?” she asks, fingers twining together in front of her as tension sits along her shoulders.

He smiles, and a dimple appears on his left cheek above the corner of his mouth. His eyes are very blue, and very warm. “You do not know me. This saddens me, lady.”

“I—I am quite sorry, ser,” she says, fighting the panic in her stomach. She thinks of Joffrey unwittingly.

The man bows at the waist, sandy hair falling across his pale brow. “Ser Harrold Hardyng, at your service.”

The breath catches in her throat. She pulls herself up to a height. Her hair flows down her back like dark water. “Ser, I apologize,” she says swiftly, holding her hand out for him to kiss. “I did not mean to be rude.”

He laughs low in his throat and takes her fingers in his. His touch is warm, his fingertips callused. “You’ve never seen me, lady. I could not expect you to divine my name and face.”

“But you know me,” she says haltingly.

“Your father is well-known. Where he is known, you are as well. And your beauty is reputed across the Vale.”

There is something about that makes her nervous, for she does not want to be noticed. She does not want to bring the wrath of King’s Landing upon the Vale, and she does not want to be found. “You are kind, Ser,” she says after a moment.

He still does not let go of her hand. “I had hoped to meet you much earlier than this. We have been in the same area for months now.”

“We have met now. That will have to do,” she says with a tentative smile. He is lovely, broad and strong. There is something in him that reminds her of Ser Loras, now dead, and Ser Jaime Lannister, of who no one has had much word since Riverrun’s fall. But she has thought lovely things of men before, and most of them have betrayed and wrecked her, one after another. She will not allow herself to be a man’s pawn again.

 _And what of Littlefinger’s pawn?_ A voice that reminds her remarkably of Arya whispers from the back of her mind as Ser Harry bows and leaves her alone in the cool dark corridor.

Alayne curls her fingers into fists and continues onto the kitchen, color high in her cheeks.

*

“So you’ve met our good Harry the Heir, have you?”

Petyr cups a hand to her cheek as he speaks. His face is close enough to see the grey in his beard and hair. They are alone in his chambers.

Her stomach swoops with fear. “What?”

In the torchlight, his face is hard angles and dark shadows. “Oh yes. He told me how enchanting you are.”

Color runs high in her cheeks. “I did not know who he was,” she says quickly. She recognizes the note of jealousy in his voice; she has heard it in men for years now. “It was very brief.”

“Oh, I know. He found you charming.” Petyr kisses her lightly, right on the mouth. His other hand is hard on her waist, pulling her close to him. It is supposed to be a reminder; Alayne belongs to him, no one else. Harry is a means to an end, nothing else. “You did well. Continue to charm him. He’ll like it.”

Alayne imagines Harry will die in some tragic, heroic way that Petyr imagines. She will have been revealed as Sansa Stark from Winterfell by then. He will be free to marry her, just as he longs to. He will be lord of Harrenhall, of the Vale, of Winterfell.

She can see it all unfold in her mind’s eye. With both Queens under scrutiny, the Martells gaining power, and the Lannister men nowhere to the found, young King Tommen is malleable and vulnerable. Petyr has plans with Varys the eunuch that deal with the Targaryen prince, and his aunt across the seas. He will be rewarded richly for his plans and manipulations, and she will never be free from him.

He kisses her again and lets her go to her room. That night, in the cool darkness with Gretchel sleeping noisily near her, she shuts her eyes and digs deeply inside her, for some spark of Stark ice in her veins.

*

One day, winter snows heavy against the castle walls and windows, she overhears word that Jon Snow has been murdered at the Wall by his brothers.

When she confronts Petyr with the news, he merely looks her over with a calculated care. “I assumed you knew. I had word of it months ago.”

“Is it true?” she asks, voice high and pitchy.

“What does it matter to Alayne Stone?” he asked coolly.

She lifts her chin, face flushed. “It matters to _me_ ,” she says sharply.

Petyr turns back to his scrolls, dismissive. “I know not if he lives or dies. The matter is inconclusive. In any case, the Wall doesn’t matter to us, sweetling. It will hold, as it always does.”

She wants to strike him, wants to be back at the Eyrie so she can push him from the Moon Door herself. But she is trained too well in the arts of the game, and she merely presses a kiss to his cheek and turns on her heel.

Later, she ducks into a dark cold corner and cries then. Her gown is covered in dust, her fingertips cold to the touch; she can’t stop the sobs ripping from her chest.

“My lady Alayne—oh.”

It is Harry, who has been nothing but courteous and a smiling light in the household. He has come to stay at Petyr’s request. He sits at Alayne’s side at all meals, speaks to her with charm and grace in the corridors. She knows what she needs to do now, to cement his affection. Today, she cannot bear it.

She turns her tear-stained face from his sight. “Ser, I’m afraid you find me unfit for company,” she breathes out raggedly.

There is only wide open silence between them, cut by the sharp breaths she sucks in over and over. She thinks of Jon, who loved her even when she was distant, when she wanted so badly to be just as her mother. Jon, who only ever wanted a place he truly belonged. It brings back the memories of Sansa that she has strived to lock away in order for survival; watching her father die a traitor’s death that she helped bring about, hearing of Bran and Rickon dying at Theon’s hands, listening to Joffrey’s triumph at Robb and her mother’s deaths. Something cracks, breaks wide open in a way she hasn’t let herself feel in so long. Her hair falls across her face as a dark curtain, shielding her from sight.

Suddenly there is warmth at her side. Harry’s hands, callused and warm, close over hers. “My lady Alayne, why are you so sad?”

She does not want to be courted now, and she does not want that name. “It’s a passing moment, ser. I will be well,” she chokes out.

He kneels next to her. A hand falls to her hair. This is the closest he’s ever been to her. “Tears do not become you, lady.”

Lifting her face, she finds him leaning quite close. The smooth features of his face blur through her tears. “I am sorry you saw me in this state. Please, don’t tell my father,” she says, tongue tripping over the words.

Harry studies her for a long moment before he leans in and kisses her once upon the mouth. He is warm and soft and tastes of ale and lemons. It sends a warm sensation swooping right through her. It is the first kind kiss she can remember in her entire life, except for the glancing moments of affection from her mother and father. This is a different kind of kiss, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Your secrets are always safe with me, my lady,” he says quietly when he has pulled back.

She watches him carefully. Something in her mind begins to click, wheels turning. There is something here she can use, can build upon.

“Thank you, ser. You are very kind,” she murmurs softly.

He helps her up and smoothes the hair back from her face, smiling. “I would always have you smile, Alayne. You are lovely when you smile.”

The words are familiar; the tone is sincere. She tilts her face up and smiles slightly. “Again, you are kind,” she says.

Harry bows low and leaves her be. She watches him walk down the corridor, fingers folding into her skirts.

There is opportunity here, she thinks. How much of that is Petyr’s influence and how much it is of her own motivations, she can’t be sure. She needs to take control again, though; she has been lacking it for many years. This may be her chance. There is the taste of ice on her tongue and the cool slide of it in her veins.

She feels like a Stark again, at last.

*

The news trickles in slowly from outside the Vale. With Kevan Lannister long murdered, Cersei is executed, and when Sansa hears the news she breathes easily for the first time in years. Maergary is cleared and takes the throne with Tommen, and a Tyrell is the new Hand, with two of the Martell bastard daughters on the council now. Stannis Bartheon has taken the North, but the Boltons and the Freys remain on the run, scattering from place to place. Petyr says Stannis is weaker than he seems, and he will fall soon, but Alayne doesn’t think that part is going according to plan.

Robert dies when she is freshly ten-and-five, from a long-suffering chest cold. At least, that is what the Maesters say. Alayne knows better. For all his whining and whimpering, she is sad when they bury him. But it is a sadness only Alayne knows; as Sansa, she has nothing but the cold ice of vengeance powering through her.

But now Harry is the heir, and he is all too happy to continue to keep Petyr on as an advisor. Their marriage contract is well-known, but with the Lannisters still at large and Tommen still King, her true identity cannot be revealed. So she plans for a wedding she does not want, under a name she does not wish to carry any longer.

It is just a plan, after all. Petyr makes his, and she makes hers. Harry speaks to her in private, under his breath at feasts and in silent corridors where she is sure of no spies.

It will come to pass, eventually. The storms will settle and the fates of the warring kings will be known. She will not act before then; she knows how to be patient.

She has learned from the mistakes of others, after all.

*


End file.
